Susan Jeffers' seminal self-help book “Feel the Fear and do it Anyway” was first published in 1987 . Its messages are just as relevant today and are highly applicable to fear of public speaking. According to a website dedicated to Susan’s work, she identified five truths about fear.  This article looks at how we might apply these to a fear of public speaking. 
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​I am a huge fan of Tim Ferris podcasts and I was so excited when I found out that he had just interviewed Susan Cain because her TED talk, The Power of Introverts, is one of my all-time favourites.   I am an introvert by nature and so her message resonates with me but I also love her delivery style.
I was thrilled to discover that the first 40 minutes of the podcast interview is about her fear of public speaking! If you have time I highly recommend that you listen for yourself.

My interest grew as  I listened because her experience closely mirrors my own and many of my clients and her approach to tackling her fear was the approach I use at Fear-less Public Speaking.
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The main things I took out of the interview were:

• Susan’s ‘almost lifelong’ fear of public speaking was triggered by a particular event at school
• The incentive to deal with her fear came from having something she cared deeply about and wanted to share
• She signed up for a course that used ‘gradual exposure’ to manage her fear
• She observes that public speaking is a skill that can be learned
• She still feels nervous but the difference is that her nerves are now manageable
• The benefits she has realised are enormous.  

Below I look at each of these points more closely. This article is a little longer than most of my pieces but I was so taken with the interview that I felt it worth summarising most of the content! 

How easy is it for the audience to detect our nerves? Does the audience really care? And why do we care so much about looking nervous?

Iask my clients to complete a pre-course questionnaire before they start one of courses and most of them say that they are worried about looking nervous in front of an audience. Many of them are also worried about sounding nervous – having a ‘shaky voice’ is a very common concern.

Presenting to an audience can be intimidating because it feels unnatural. We are used to interactive conversations where we get immediate verbal and non-verbal feedback. But when we present to an audience, it can feel like a one-way experience. All eyes are on us and we are often looking at blank faces. In fact, one theory about why we fear public speaking is that it has an evolutionary basis and we perceive the audience as the predator! (See my recent article on this and other theories about why we fear public speaking.)

Sometimes people do have to present to ‘hostile’ or indifferent audiences. But usually our audiences are  easy to please if we give them what they want. More often than not the main thing they are looking for is connection. The great news is that establishing connection will also make you feel more relaxed.
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Connecting with your audience helps you “get out of your own head” as you realise that it’s not all about you. Approaching a presentation in the mindset of “How can I best serve my audience?” rather than “what will they think of me?” is empowering.
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Most public speaking coaches agree that the old advice to imagine your audience as naked is the worst advice that you can give someone because it creates the barrier between you and your audience!
So here are nine things you can try instead. 

With Halloween upon us, I thought it was timely to look at why a fear of public speaking is so common! 

My Toastmasters Club, Talking Heads, has a Mark Twain quote on our website, "There are two types of speakers - those that are nervous and those that are liars". 

Recently the Atlantic reported that a tweet posted by a 15-year old high-school student “Stop forcing students to present in front of the class and give them a choice not too”, had gone viral, as had as similar tweet posted earlier this year.

Some students are concerned that forcing them to present in front of their peers, can fuel their anxiety and have long-term harmful effects. Some of the tweets suggested it was a mental health issue, and that people suffering from anxiety should be given alternatives. They also say that students are being unfairly penalised by receiving poor grades for presenting badly when their content is good.

People who are nervous about public speaking are sometimes put off doing public speaking courses because they don’t want to do impromptu speaking. Impromptu speaking, or table topics as it is known in Toastmasters, requires the participant to respond to random topics with no preparation. For example, you might be asked “what is the best advice you have ever had?” or “if you could time travel, what year would you chose to travel to?” Or you might be asked to give your opinion on a topical issue such as, “should we ban plastic water bottles?”.   

When I ask a group of people if they have ever had to talk to a group about something they didn’t understand or were not convinced about themselves I usually get a lot of nods. Then I ask them how they felt about it. They say things like ‘I felt uncomfortable.’ ‘I felt like a fraud.’ ‘I felt like people were going to challenge me and I wouldn’t be able to respond.’ ‘I was scared I would get found out.’
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Perhaps you are a team leader or mid-level manager and you work for a company who has just adopted a new vision and values. You have heard senior management explain it and put a great story around it and now it’s your turn to present it to your team. Suddenly you feel very uncomfortable. How are you going to explain it when you still have lots of questions yourself? Fearing your content is not helpful and can really undermine your confidence.